


The Pilot and the Mandalorian Jedi - Book 6 of the Flame of Hope universe

by TheLoneRebels



Series: Flame of Hope [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: Resistance (Cartoon)
Genre: F/M, Gotta love Hondo!, Incoming smut, Mira Wren-Bridger; the perfect blend of her parents, Poe gets a new backstory, Romantic fluff and angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:15:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28147449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLoneRebels/pseuds/TheLoneRebels
Summary: Poe Dameron had terrible luck with girls. And it didn't get any better when he finally met one that wouldn't leave his mind. Fortunately for him, Mira Wren-Bridger decides to take things into her own hands and do whatever it takes to claim her soulmate. Then she drags him on quest to find a missing Knight of Ren.M for now. Rating will go up when the lemons show up! :P
Relationships: Din Djarin/Omera, Ezra Bridger/Sabine Wren, Imanuel Doza/Venisa Doza, Jacen Syndulla/Original Female Character(s), Leia Organa/Han Solo, Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker, Poe Dameron/Mira Wren-Bridger, Rey/Ben Solo, Shara Bey/Kes Dameron
Series: Flame of Hope [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057457
Comments: 10
Kudos: 11





	1. The Pilot's Prologue

**Hello there!**

**Thank you all soooooo much for checking out my story! If you like it, it's very inspiring to me if you let me know in some way, and thank you in advance for every kudos, sub, or nice review; they're my own version of caffeine. :D :D :D :D :D**

**For those who really wish I would write a one shot of their idea or would just really like to see a certain story bump up to the top of my rotation, check out the pinned post on my Facebook page, TheLoneRebel's Stories, for info. You can also find my updating schedule there and blurbs from some of my chapters. :D**

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**Disclaimer: I don't own any Star Wars characters and any OC's that resemble real people are entirely coincidental.**

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**There is an explanation of how my calendar works and a list of helpful translations for my commonly used Star Wars words in 'Flame of Hope - Everyone' if you're curious.**

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**A/N: I’m dedicating this story to my very good friend, Ryan, who’s going through some really tough times right now. This version of Poe Dameron’s origin story is loosely based on Ryan’s actual life. He is the bravest boy I’ve ever met and I hope he finds his real life Mira one day, just like Poe. Love you, little bro.**

**Also, to anyone not familiar with the Flame of Hope universe, it more or less follows canon events until 5 ABY and then things start changing drastically thanks to Ezra and the World between Worlds.**

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** The Pilot and the Mandalorian Jedi **

** a Flame of Hope story **

**The Pilot’s Prologue:**

Poe Dameron was born with the need to fly in his blood. It thrummed through him like a siren call any time he was stuck on the ground and thrilled him to the very bones whenever he was in the air.

Flying was his life and he did whatever he had to make sure it stayed that way.

Poe came by the addiction naturally, via his mother’s side of his bloodline. Shara Bey grew up watching her father race on the galactic pro circuit and learned to fly as soon as she was big enough to handle the controls of his modified Delta-7 Aethersprite Interceptor. She never raced, herself, but the love of flying had certainly been instilled in her. To please her loyalist mother, she’d enrolled in an Imperial academy and became a TIE pilot. There, she met and fell in love with a stormtrooper sergeant named Kes Dameron.

They went AWOL from the Imperial military when the rumours that the Empire had deliberately blown up Alderaan proved to be true.

Kes was from Alderaan.

For the next three years, Shara and Kes hid out in a small colony in the last place they thought the Empire would bother to look for them; Yavin 4, which contained an abandoned Rebellion base. They got married and had Poe during that time. But after Poe was born, Shara couldn’t bear to just sit at home and do nothing anymore after seeing news of planet after planet being oppressed and taken over by the Empire. So she contacted her father (who was ecstatic to hear from his missing daughter) and asked if he would take care of Poe while she and Kes joined the Rebellion.

Of course, Raynar Bey said yes. His racing career had just come to a screeching halt anyway when the Empire outlawed all Pro, Amateur, and even rinky-dink backwater circuits in an effort to quell the rising tide of rebellion. That effort backfired when most of the racers joined the Alliance as fighter pilots instead.

Poe didn’t see much of his parents after that, but he did enjoy his grandfather’s stories about racing very much. And he literally crawled all over the old black Interceptor as Raynar tinkered with it. Nothing made the toddler happier than to be taken up for a flight around the planet while sitting on his grandfather’s lap.

Even better was whenever his mom came home and took him for a ride in her RZ-1 A-Wing Interceptor. There was only one starfighter that Poe loved more, and that was of the X-Wing. He first saw one in news footage of the Battle of Endor when he was only two years old. But the distinctive X and spearhead shape of the fighter never left his mind and he doodled it constantly on all of his school work as the years passed.

Finally, after hearing about things like Endor, Death Stars, Jakku, Cinder, Skywalker, and Princesses, his parents came home to stay when Poe was six, having finally had enough of fighting even though there were still Imperial remnants out there causing problems for the New Republic.

And for some reason that he didn’t understand until years later, his mother brought home a tiny little tree to plant in their yard, only saying that it was very special.

Poe only got two years with his mother before she suddenly passed away of a heart attack. Not that he didn’t love his father also, but the boy was devastated when she died, because they had the same love for flying that his father just didn’t. She was only twenty-nine and he couldn’t understand how the universe could be so cruel to do that to those who loved her dearly.

Poe nearly killed himself taking her A-Wing out on his own without permission after her funeral, flying too close to the red gas giant called Yavin when tears had blinded him.

He was grounded from flying for a month after that.

Eventually, the eight year old boy recovered his fun-loving and vibrant personality with the help of a new friend three years his junior (but already nearly as tall) called Ben Solo. Ben had accompanied his mother, a Princess of the destroyed Alderaan that Poe’s parents had known, when she showed up a few weeks later to pay her condolences. The younger boy had been drawn to the now two metre tall tree in their front yard, and Poe had followed him out to find him staring at it in wonder as the adults did the ‘so sorry for your loss’ thing inside.

Confused as to why that tree would garner such a reaction, Poe meandered up to the black haired boy, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he scuffed the ground with a toe. “Watcha doin’?”

Ben glanced at him with shining brown eyes. “Can’t you feel it?” he whispered almost reverently.

Now Poe was even more confused. “Feel what?”

“The Force! This tree, it glows with the Force!”

“What’s the Force?”

Ben turned, gawking at Poe instead of at the tree. “You don’t know?”

Now feeling like he might be stupid, Poe kicked the dirt pathway again. “No. Never heard of it.”

The other boy’s expression sobered quickly. “Oh, well, I guess since you don’t have much of it, that kinda makes sense.”

“Don’t have much of what?”

“The Force, you nerf!” Ben said is if that had been obvious. And maybe it was, now that Poe thought back.

“So what is this… Force?” Despite himself, Poe was starting to get intrigued. Either Ben knew a really cool secret or he was missing a few powercoils in the engine, so to speak. Both made the other boy hella interesting, no matter which proved to be true.

Ben put on the must adult expression Poe had ever seen on another child. “It’s an energy field that binds the entire galaxy together and it’s in everything. Every tree, animal, person, and planet has it in some degree or they wouldn’t be alive. Like you, and normal trees. But then there’s people like me and my family and that tree; we have it filling our very cells to the brim, which is why I can do this.”

Poe gasped as Ben held his hand out and suddenly there was fist-sized rock from the edge of the path floating above Ben’s hand. “Whoa! You’re like a wizard!”

Ben laughed and tossed the rock at Poe without ever touching it. Poe caught it out of reflex and just stared at it for a few seconds as the younger boy grinned at him. “Yeah, something like that. But we prefer to call ourselves Jedi Knights. My grandfather was the strongest Knight in the galaxy a long time ago. He’s dead now, but I still talk to his ghost all the time.”

Again, Poe would have thought Ben crazy if he hadn’t just seen him float a rock. “Ghosts are real?” Poe squeaked out.

Ben shrugged and looked at the tree again, putting his hands in his pockets like Poe had to start with. “There are a few. Only strong Jedi that have passed, as far as I know. Their essence lives on in the Force, at least, that’s how my Uncle Luke explained it.”

“What…” Poe gulped. “What about normal people. Like my Mom? Do they live on too?”

Ben glanced at him and smiled. “Yeah, yeah they do. Up in Force Heaven, as Grandpa calls it. Grandma was just a normal Human like you, with only a little Force, and now she and Grandpa are together again up there. Only… he can come visit me because he’s strong with the Force and she can’t. But your mom? I’m sure she’s up there waiting for you and watching you. Auntie Soka says we’re never alone because our loved ones live on in the Force and the Force is in all of us, so we’re always connected.”

Poe was honestly having to fight back tears at what he’d just heard as what felt like a massive cloud of sorrow was lifted from his narrow shoulders. “Thank you,” he whispered, sniffing. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

Ben only glanced at him and then pointedly looked at the tree again, respectfully giving Poe space to pull himself together. “Actually, I do. I haven’t personally lost anyone yet like you have, but I can feel your emotions, and that is a pain that I hope to not experience for a long time.”

“I hope so for your sake, too,” Poe whispered gruffly as he clenched the rock tightly for a second and then tossed it back down to its approximate previous location. “Losing a parent sucks nerfballs.”

“I bet,” Ben whispered back.

Poe squared his shoulders, beyond done with crying after weeks of it. “Hey, you like starfighters?”

Ben turned and his eyes lit up again. “Do I ever! Why, you got one?”

Poe ginned wickedly. “I got two.”

“Sweeeeeeet,” Ben breathed in awe.

“Come on, I’ll show you.”

And thus, a long-distance friendship was born, kept alive by hours-long comm calls and a shared love of flying.

Poe sympathized when Ben’s parents left him to be raised by nanny droids more often than not.

Ben sympathized when Poe tried to kiss a girl for the first time at eleven years old and got himself punched in the eye instead.

Poe supported Ben’s decision to move to the Jedi school on Lothal instead of living with his parents. He believed that Ben should live the life that would make him the most happy, and if properly training to be a Jedi with others of his kind was it, then staying home where he wasn’t happy or understood made no sense at all.

Ben supported Poe’s decision to leave home at sixteen when a ship full of spice runners crashed near his village on Yavin 4, and Poe joined them, taking the now matte black A-Wing as his mode of transport. (The fact that there was a smoking hot girl on the crew had absolutely nothing to do with it. Really.) He’d been feeling as if his home held nothing of interest for him anymore. Ben wasn’t so keen on the idea Poe becoming a smuggler, but he had to admit that his friend had the skills for the dangerous job.

And so it went as they grew up and their normal conversations became more and more about girls and less and less about flying and dreams.

Poe was never sure who had it worse; Ben, with his bonded soulmate who was ten years younger (a nightmare for any teenage boy) and his struggle with attraction to girls in his own age group while still wanting to remain faithful to Rey, or himself with his wretched luck with girls.

His first real girlfriend was Zorii Bliss (the hot one with the spice runners) and turned out to be the daughter of the leader of the group. She was a bit older than him, but he managed to win her over anyway after a few month’s worth of proving himself to be worthy of her affections. And then all the hard work and dedication towards making her happy flew out the airlock to an instant death when Zorii’s mother decided to turn her peace summit into an execution of all of the competition.

Poe refused to have anything to do with outright murder and instead helped the other criminal leaders escape. In the process, he was nearly killed by Zeva Bliss, but Zorii stood up against her mother and told Poe to run if this wasn’t the life he wanted. He did, and he hasn’t seen her since.

After that, Poe returned home to Yavin 4 for a short time, much to his father’s relief. But he left again after his grandfather passed away in his sleep and his father tried to keep the fact that he was courting another woman a secret – which was almost impossible to do in a village that small – which Poe could understand, knowing his mother wouldn’t want his dad to be lonely for the rest of his life, but he couldn’t make himself watch it happen.

Poe had always wanted to fly an X-Wing and had come to the conclusion that the only way to do so was to enlist in the New Republic navy. So he did.

At seventeen years old, the navy taught him how to fly. Which was hilarious, considering he arrived in a heavily modified A-Wing, the most notoriously difficult to control starfighter in the galaxy because there was no room for an astromech on what basically amounted to a cockpit poised above two massive engines. But Poe happily sat through their classes and flight simulations, soaking in any and all new knowledge they were willing to give him. And at the end of the two month course, he finally got to fly his dream.

After his first flight through the test course, Wedge Antilles, his instructor, said he’d only ever seen two other people with such an innate ability to fly; Hera Syndulla and Luke Skywalker. (Both people that Poe knew vicariously through Ben but had never actually met.) Considering that one of those was a Jedi, Poe knew he couldn’t have received a higher compliment and tried not to let it inflate his ego. Much. 

Poe’s natural skill with the starfighter and charismatic leadership qualities had him quickly advancing through the ranks. By the time the year 20 ABY rolled around, he was made Commander of Rapier Squadron and given his very own personal astromech droid.

BB-8 became Poe’s second best friend after only one mission together and the man and orange and white rollie droid were basically inseparable after that.

Not long after that, Poe discovered that there was another faction of Imperial-like military trying to take over the galaxy. And that the New Republic not only knew about it, but seemed to be dismissing the First Order as nothing more than pesky mosquitoes.

They weren’t mosquitoes.

Poe told Ben about what he’d discovered via some extracurricular snooping and soon found himself contacted by the Queen of New Alderaan, the same Princess who’d come to Yavin 4 so many years ago and brought her son with her.

She offered him a command position in her husband’s fleet, which was sort of secretly looking for the First Order against the Senate’s wishes, and he accepted eagerly. Providing he got to keep BB-8 and his custom painted black T-70 X-Wing, that is.

Leia Organa made it happen. (Something Ben said his mother was very good at.)

Poe’s reliable (sort of) old A-Wing was also loaded up and stored on Admiral Solo’s flagship, just in case he needed it. (As if he would leave it behind.)

Poe didn’t have much luck holding onto a girlfriend during his time with either of the New Republic Defense Fleets. Many girls approached him, attracted to his smile and good looks and reputation as the best pilot in the fleet, but they left just as fast when they realized he would always love flying more than he would love them. Many accused him of being more committed to his X-Wing and his droid than he was to their relationship, and Poe would reluctantly admit that they were right. And then he’d be forced to watch them stomp off in a huff.

Ben said it was because he hadn’t found his soulmate yet that he was having such a hard time fully committing himself to a relationship.

Poe thought he just needed to get better at acting as if the girl actually was more important than his missions. He just hadn’t felt inspired enough to do so for some reason.

At least he had the hunting of First Order baddies to keep him distracted from his depressing failures at holding onto a girlfriend for more than a week.

But even that came to an end a couple months later after a Knight of Ren made the mistake of capturing Hera Syndulla and brought the wrath of the New Jedi Order and all of their many allies down on his Master’s head as they tracked down their beloved mother figure and friend.

Poe was part of one of the four fleets that surrounded Snoke’s First Order ships and was highly disappointed when the group of approximately fifty Destroyers and Cruisers surrendered without a fight.

Granted, Snoke was already dead at that point, and Grand Master Tano had already taken over his flagship, the Supremacy, so there was no real incentive for Snoke’s minions to sacrifice their lives for him. According to Ben - who was very mad that he wasn’t there just because he supposedly wasn’t old enough to fight at fifteen years old (Padawans used to go to war at fourteen!) - Snoke had been killed by Hera Syndulla and she had been killed in return at the same time, devastating the many who loved her. He’d also said that every one of the commanding officers and Knights of Ren had been killed in battle or executed except for one Knight who’d gotten away.

Which meant there was basically no one left to hunt down and Poe’s job had become exponentially easier.

And kind of boring, if he was being honest.

So when he stumbled on a racing circuit on a routine patrol of the outer edges of the Mid Rim, needing a refuel, Poe found himself stopping at the ocean planet of Castilon to watch. Then the winner of the last race, a hotshot green Rodian who couldn’t be any older than Poe at the very most strutted himself up to Poe and eyeballed the Navy pilot and his black X-Wing with disdain. “You any good, mudscruffer?”

Poe and his pride of course said, “Hell yeah. Better than you, nerfrag.”

The Rodian, named Fazon, as the announcer had said many times, planted his hands on his hips. “Wanna prove it, scumbucket?”

“You’re on.”

“Good. And no cheating. Which means no astromechs and no munitions. And… that’s about it.”

 _Sooooo, anything else goes? I can work with that._ Poe glanced at his droid and shrugged. “Sorry, buddy.”

Ignoring BB-8’s beeps of warning that he was going to get himself in trouble, Poe flew his X-Wing over to the starting platform while Fazon talked to whomever to make another race happen. Minutes later, Fazon’s bright green G30 racer was in the slot next to Poe and the countdown was on.

“Five… Four… Three… Two… One… Go!”

The clamps let his ship go and Poe was off, flying side by side with Fazon as they made for the first ring they had to pass through to stay on course.

There was only room for one ship to fit through the rings at a time. You miss the ring, you had to circle back and were almost gauarnteed to lose the race. Try and squish through with another ship, you both crash into the ocean and probably die.

Poe was determined to be the first to the ring. And every ring after that.

His fighter wasn’t designed to be a racer, but it had been built for speed and agility, and Poe used every bit of that to his advantage as he extended the S-foils in attack position and gunned it for the ring.

He slid through a half second before Fazon, and whooped with sheer joy at the risk.

The course of rings took them past or under the fueling station known as the Colossus four different times (three of which Poe was in the lead for), way out over the empty ocean, and even up into space, where they had to pass through a ring that triggered a shutdown of all systems, leaving them to freefall back down and aim for a ring on deadstick steering that had Poe’s heart racing with adrenaline.

Poe passed through the trigger ring first and he was able to restart the engines just in time to avoid crashing into the water below. His eyes were already pinned to the last ring even as his precious fighter roared back to life. “Okay, baby, let’s win this thing.”

With Fazon all but attached to his tail and making solid attempts to push him off course, Poe kept the controls steady with determined hands and the figurative pedal to the metal as he pushed for every last ounce of speed from his fighter.

He passed through the last ring at the max limit of 1100 kph a full second before Fazon.

“Yes!” he cried, flying a victory lap around the Colossus as the watching crowd cheered, throwing in a few aileron rolls just for the fun of it. He vaguely noticed that Fazon flew into a hanger and the door closed behind him, probably going to sulk at his loss.

Poe landed back on the platform where he’d left BB-8 and leapt out of the fighter, leaving the engines idling, since he was very late to report in. His blood was thrumming and a grin split his face in the biggest expression of happiness he’d worn in like, ever.

His droid rolled up to him, beeping things about ‘insane’ and ‘great flying’ as Poe fell to his knees and all but hugged the rollie. “I know, right, buddy? Stars, I think I might have to change careers.”

“There’s a place for you here if you want,” a man called out.

Poe looked up and stood, nearly saluting as he instantly recognized the posture of a high level officer. But the older man with grey at the temples wasn’t dressed in a uniform that he recognized, so Poe just barely refrained. At the man’s side was a very pretty brown haired woman carrying an adorable looking toddler with the same slanted eyes, but in a grey shade that curiously matched neither parents’ brown. (Probably a recessive gene from a grandparent.) “Pardon?”

The man smiled under his full mustache. “Sorry. I couldn’t help but overhear. I am Imanuel Doza, Captain of the Colossus, and I said there’s a place here for you if you want it. I’m looking for skilled pilots to not only represent the Colossus in races all across the galaxy, but also those with fighting experience to help defend against pirates whenever you’re home. I can offer you seventy thousand credits a year, plus I’ll feed and house you and fund all of your racing costs. What do you say?”

Since that was nearly three times what the Navy paid him, Poe blinked a few times, looked down at BB-8 who gave his version of a shrug, and then looked back at Doza. “I say I’d have to be flat-out stupid to pass that up. You’ve got yourself a pilot.”

Doza smiled widely. “Excellent. Welcome to the Colossus…”

Poe stuck his hand out, “Dameron, Poe Dameron.”

The woman inhaled sharply. “Kes Dameron and Shara Bey’s son?”

Poe eyed the woman somewhat suspiciously. “Yes.”

Her face broke out in a huge grin. “I'm Venisa. Your mother and I flew together many times for the Rebellion. She was a good friend. It would be great to see her again.”

 _Poodoo._ “I’m sorry, Mom’s gone.”

Her expression sobered instantly and she touched his arm gently as her eyes shone with sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

Poe shrugged self-consciously. “It was a long time ago.” He wasn’t up to explaining any further than that at the moment as the old pain of loss rushed through him.

“I see,” she murmured. “Well, we’d love to give you a home here with us.”

So, despite the fact that he’d always planned to settle on Lothal to be close to Ben when he was tired of the military life, Poe resigned from the Navy and moved to the Colossus. (Fazon hated his guts for it for months before he reluctantly decided that Poe wasn't so bad and they ended up as cheerful frenemies.)

Thanks to his friendship with her son and his excellent service record, Queen Organa once again pulled a few strings and made it so that Poe could keep his X-Wing and BB-8 as part of his severance package. He moved his old A-Wing to the Colossus and then flew home to Yavin 4 to tell his father in person the new path his life had taken. He found Kes Dameron happily married and expecting his first child with his new wife, which Poe congratulated them for as the fact that he was going to be a brother slowly sank in. He promised to visit often so that his new sibling wouldn’t grow up not knowing him.

Before leaving Yavin, his father insisted that Poe take his grandfather’s old Aethersprite with him, since it was just sitting in the hangar and rusting there on the tropical moon. Poe was happy to do so, figuring having a third racer couldn’t hurt anything. And the Aethersprite was beautiful in its simplicity.

He had to do some tinkering with it to get it running again, though, since it had sat so long. But once it was up in the air, Poe remembered just how much he’d loved flying in his grandfather’s lap in this very ship so many years ago.

BB-8 flew the X-Wing to their new home and Poe stayed in the Aethersprite, smiling at old memories that he’d nearly forgotten, and remembering how Ben had told him that their loved ones were never really gone, but lived on within the Force and thus themselves. Poe believed it as a few stray tears trickled down his cheeks.

Poe’s new life as a racer took him all around the galaxy from the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim and everything in between. He won many races and quickly earned a reputation as the guy to beat. He even won the famed Dragon Void race twice in the five times he entered it over the next six years and placed second the other three times, an accomplishment that had only ever been bettered by the infamous and practically ancient Loo Re Anno. (She won the races he didn’t.)

Poe soon had fangirls trying to catch his attention wherever he went, but after the first few temporary girlfriends, he realized that he didn’t like the feeling of only being wanted because he was famous, so he started to avoid them as much as possible. Yavin 4 and the Colossus became his sanctuaries away from the screaming and swooning females, where he spent much of his downtime playing with his half-brother, Tylar, and his ‘adopted’ little sister, Torra Doza. Needless to say, Poe did his best to instill his love of flying into both of them. 

Sometime during his twenty-second year, Poe met a girl on the Colossus who had just moved there with her family. They were simple fishermen and the ocean-bound fueling station was a perfect opportunity to make a good profit on their trade.

Her name was Zatara and she was beautiful. Athletic, blond and blue eyed, funny, and incredibly sweet, she was everything Poe thought he wanted in a lifemate. They hit it off instantly and spent hours just talking and cuddling. He was in absolute bliss for days until she saw the weekend races for the first time. Her panicked, “You do that?!” sent warning bells off in his head. And her bloodless face and trembling hands after he landed from winning the feature race of the day told him that she could never be the wife of a racer. Not when most of his races were decidedly more dangerous than the relatively tame ones found on Castilon.

Zatara realized it too, just shaking her head at him and saying, “I can’t, Poe. I can’t watch you do that. I'm so sorry.”

As much as it hurt him to say it, Poe only hugged her and said, “I understand. But I can’t change myself for you and you can’t change yourself for me, so I hope you find someone who can make you happy and keeps his feet firmly planted on the ground.”

She’d laughed through her tears, kissed him on the cheek, and walked away. Poe avoided her as much as possible after that. Fortunately, the Colossus was roughly the size of a small city and it wasn't that hard to do.

With an aching heart, Poe decided it was long past time that he visit Ben on Lothal again. He’d only seen his best friend a handful of times in person over the years. Except for once a couple years ago when he’d done a quick flyby of the grassy planet on his way to a race on Garel, and met Ben at the spaceport while he was refueling, it had always been when Ben was visiting his parents while Poe was still with the Navy.

Ben was ecstatic to see him, and Poe couldn’t believe how much more the younger man had grown and filled out. He looked way up at the nineteen year old giant that topped him by a full head and laughed. “Geez, buddy. Are you sure Admiral Solo’s your dad?” he teased.

Ben laughed and crushed him in a quick man-hug before letting go. “Mom swears it’s so. And Dad vows upside and down that I look like his father, sooooo, I guess I’m pretty sure.” He gestured towards his house in a row of them near a tall communications tower. “Come on in. Rey’s excited to see you and so is M.J. and Uncle Luke. A bunch of the other kids have come over too, eager to see my imaginary best friend. And their parents, of course.”

“Sure, bud, sure. Gotta prove I’m real,” Poe laughed and followed his friend into a very nice house that was currently packed with people, BB-8 at his heels.

Poe tried not to be overwhelmed and keep faces and names straight in his mind, but he was sure he’d get something wrong sooner or later. There was one name and face he was sure he’d never forget, though.

One girl, vibrant and beautiful in a nearly jaw-dropping way had Poe doing a double take when he first saw her in the crowd. She was slim but very fit looking in Mandalorian armour that was painted black with yellow and blue highlights. Had golden amber eyes that dominated her elfin face. Midnight blue hair that shone with royal blue and yellow highlights and tumbled down her back in curls and waves from a high ponytail. And was definitely too young for him to be looking at with anything resembling desire.

Despite this, Poe whispered to Ben, “Who is that?”

Ben followed his line of sight and huffed a sigh that said he knew exactly what sort of conundrum Poe was going through right now. “That’s Mira. She’s the first true Mandalorian Jedi in a thousand years or something like that. You don’t want to mess with her. And you definitely don’t want to get on the bad side of her parents. Her mother will eviscerate you with a smile, and her father will crush your balls with his mind if you so much as glance at her wrong. At least, that’s the rumour. And… she’s only sixteen, so put your tongue back in your mouth and forget you ever saw her.”

Poe blinked as a purple and orange haired woman in Mandalorian armour - who looked enough like Mira to be her older sister but was probably the aforementioned gut-removing mother - sent him a warning look that sent a shiver down his spine. Poe politely nodded subtly and rested his gaze on the much safer territory of BB-8’s round dome. “Copy that.”

Poe did his best to not look at the girl for the rest of the gathering, and to not look for her during the week he was on Lothal. And then he lied to himself and pretended that he forgot all about her for the next two years, but she showed up in his dreams and every female he encountered after that was automatically compared to her and found wanting.

After one particularly vivid dream that had Mira doing delectable things to his body that left him aching and sweating when he woke suddenly, Poe had to admit to himself that he might actually be in love with a girl he’d never said more than ‘hello’ to. He also came to the conclusion that he might have to brave the wrath of her parents to meet her again and see if the attraction had any hope of being mutual, or live with the very real possibility that he might go insane from the dreams that seemed to intensify with every week that went by.

His only consolation with his suicidal plan was that she had to be at least eighteen and legal by now.

* * *

**A/N: I've come up with a new way to determine what order my stories get updated in starting Jan, 2021! Check out my bio/profile page or the pinned post on my Facebook page (TheLoneRebel's Stories) for details!**


	2. The Mandalorian Jedi's Prologue

**A/N: The next two chapters are for my 2020 FFN reward winner, Ramage. Thank you for all the support and being such a great friend. Here's the beginning of your story and I hope it gets voted for often so that we see the end of it before my fingers are too old and broken to type. (I recently discovered that I can't cross them anymore. eep!) :P**

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**The Mandalorian Jedi’s Prologue:**

Mira Wren-Bridger might not have been the firstborn in her family, but she was the first official Mandalorian Jedi to be born in over a thousand years.

You see, her older brother, Caleb, had no desire to become a Mandalorian. Aside from learning to wield the Force to the best of his talented ability, the only thing that his entire world revolved around was his bonded mate, who was born only one day after he was. Minxha Bonteri and Caleb grew up together and were as inseparable as their parents allowed them to get.

Mira, on the other hand, had no one aside from her parents. As she grew up, it felt like she was surrounded by example after example of the nearly sickening loving sweetness that came with a Force bonded couple. Hell, even Din and Omera were Force bonded, and they weren’t even Jedi.

So the girl clung to what she did have; the ways of her parents.

Her father, Ezra Bridger, was officially made a Jedi Master by the time she was ten, and she wanted to be just like him. He was kind, friendly, caring, and humble (most of the time), yet still was a fiercely protective parent and spouse who could fight with the best of them and win if he felt like it. 

She also wanted to be just like her mother, Sabine Wren. Mira thought her mom was a badass warrior, through and through, and wanted a set of armour just like hers, beautiful paint job and everything. Mira tried to do the artist thing too, but she was as hopeless at drawing as Ezra was, so she gave up on that fairly quickly and left it to her mother and older brother to make things pretty. (Caleb inherited the artist gene, and he doodled on occasion, but he wasn’t interested in making art full-time either.)

The only part of Sabine’s artistic side that Mira seemed to inherit was her dramatic flair in regards to outfits and hair. The girl loved colour and wore a variety of it every day, not to mention dying her long midnight blue locks in new shades of the rainbow on a regular basis.

Like all Mandos, Mira started training with weapons at an early age, along with learning hand-to-hand, acrobatic, and jetpack flight skills. Her Jedi lessons also started early, what with her showing off her powers by the age of two to everyone she met, and they didn’t differ that much from the Mando lessons. They did focus more on control through meditation, but she still learned how to handle a lightsabre, hand-to-hand, body control, and to channel her energy into something useful and good.

Mira was blessed with two families who adored her; her Jedi/Ghost family, and her Mando family on Krownest. She might not have found her soulmate practically right off the bat like most of the other Jedi kids on Lothal, but she wasn’t lacking in affection by any means. Her notoriously tough-shelled grandmother, Ursa Wren, even cracked real smiles around the girl and personally saw to most of her training in the traditional Mandalorian ways. Which meant that Ursa actually visited Lothal more than once a year like she had before Mira was born, and that she ‘stole’ her granddaughter for weeks at a time between Sabine’s visits to Krownest.

Mira had a bunch of Mando cousins on Krownest to play with, including her uncle Tristan’s three kids, so she was never lacking in companionship on the winter planet either.

On her twelfth birthday (as was tradition), Ursa presented Mira with her very own set of Beskar armour, which had once belonged to her great-grandmother on her father’s side of the family. She was thrilled to death with the freshly-reforged-to-fit-her armour, and designs for painting the shiny silver metal started whirling through her mind almost immediately. Between the ages of twelve and sixteen, her armour underwent a multitude of new paint jobs, each one matching her current hair style. She never did anything as fancy as what was painted on her mother’s armour, but Mira was proud of whatever she did accomplish, usually sticking to only two or three colours and following the lines of the armour in pleasing patterns.

She never told anyone this, but more often than not, she drew her inspiration for the colours and patterns for her armour from holo recordings of starfighter races, picking whichever ship struck her fancy and copying it to some degree.

She also never told anyone how much she loved watching the thrilling and dangerous races. She liked to try and guess who the winner was going to be just from looking at the pilots before the race even started. Facial expressions and body language could tell so much about a being’s state of mind and level of determination. She was usually right.

She came by her fascination with flying fairly, though, thanks to her Grandma Hera, who could fly anything, and her Auntie Ketsu, who took her up in her TIE Defender for a ride when Mira was still an infant, combining babysitting duty with her patrol of Lothal space. The Defender went ZZOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM, and that was it, Mira was hooked on speed.

She begged her parents and Hera for flying lessons before she could even talk properly. But her mental shouts of, _‘Wanna fly!’_ were clear enough as far as she was concerned.

Eventually (when she was big enough) they caved and she was taught to fly, and another present she received at twelve years old was her own Defender so that she could take turns on the planetary patrols too. If she made a side-trip or two playing with the clouds on the way too and from space, no one ever called her on it.

Her last important present that year was a trip to Cerulia with her family, where she not only picked a Kyber crystal to build her own lightsabre with, she also chose a much bigger one that would grow and shape into her very own Kyber Sword. Within days of bonding with her, both crystals took on a blue shade so dark, it looked black at first. She thought it was awesome. So did her parents. Auntie Soka looked at her with worry furrowing the white markings above her eyes for a few minutes before she shrugged, smiled, and said, ‘Must be a Mandalorian thing. You’re still firmly in the Light side, so I guess I have nothing to worry about.’

It hadn’t even occurred to Mira to associate the dark colour with the Dark Side until then. She let that bother her for all of a minute before she shrugged it off too and decided that the midnight blue meant she was special, not prone to evil. Besides, the Cerulians made their Kyber Swords literally any shade of the rainbow that struck their fancy, even red, and they weren’t Darksiders by any stretch of the imagination. 

Her twelfth birthday was easily the best one of her life so far. And she doubted any birthday in the future would top it.

Of course, now that she had armour and was considered mature enough to fly on her own, Mira also firmly believed that she was old enough to start going on missions for the New Jedi Order. 

She understood that she was too young to fight the final battle with the Yuuzhan Vong back in 15 BBY, when she was only seven. But she felt that she was certainly old enough five years later to help look for new Force sensitives with her cousin Jacen, or go on peacekeeping missions with her father or Auntie Soka.

They turned her down, frustrating her to no end, saying she could start going on missions when she was old enough to be a Padawan at fourteen. Being a Mandalorian, she wanted to break something from frustration. But because she was a Jedi too, Mira refrained and instead focused her energy on training harder. (Much to the dismay of anyone who found themselves roped into sparring with her.)

Her wonderful twelfth year turned into a nightmare when Hera was stolen and subsequently murdered. It was one of the times when she desperately wished she was allowed to go with the adults, because she would always wonder if they’d had just one more person, one more Jedi on the rescue team, would they have been able to save Hera?

Mira wasn’t the only one of the children and teenagers left behind who thought that. Basically, they all did. Even Skye was left behind, and she was sixteen and fully capable of kicking ass with her Kyber sword. Not to mention she would have wanted to save Jacen’s mother more than anyone, thanks to their soulmate bond.

Stupid, overprotective parents.

Din might have been the most disappointed that he hadn’t been called on to help, never one to turn down a good fight (which is why he was one of her favourite sparring partners), but she could understand the reasoning behind that one as well; in their haste to charge to the rescue, Ezra and Ahsoka had forgotten that they had other allies that were just as effective at batting Force users.

The students of the Jedi school and everyone in Spectre House walked around like zombies for days afterwards, utterly heartbroken at the loss of someone who was essentially the core of their family. Even Mira’s father turned into a shade of his former cheerful self, looking drawn and troubled. Mira got it. She did. As their strongest Seer by far, Ezra was probably kicking himself to death for not foreseeing the events to come.

Eventually they all returned to life as normal, just with a Hera sized hole in their hearts. Even Jacen picked up the broken pieces of his psyche (with a little help from Skye) and returned to his self appointed task of searching the galaxy for others like them. The first time he flew off in the Ghost without Hera, Mira had to put her helmet on to hide the tears streaming down her face. At least she wasn’t the only one.

Two more years went by in something of a blur as Mira’s life revolved around school, training, watching races on the holonet while wishing she was as free as those pilots were (especially the always smiling and super cute Poe Dameron who Ben Solo claimed was his best friend), and her evening and weekend patrols in her Defender.

Jacen and Skye got married the day the Cerulian princess turned eighteen, pretty much eloping and then telling everyone after the fact. (Skye's parents weren’t impressed.) When the couple returned from their month-long honeymoon, Jacen surprised Mira by asking her to be his Padawan.

Despite the fact that they’d never formed a nearly instant and strong Master/Padawan bond like some others when first meeting (like Ahsoka and Skye, Mara Jade and Ben, and Luke with Grogu), she accepted eagerly, knowing that meant she’d finally get to see more of the galaxy. As far as Mira was concerned, her familial bond with her young uncle was more than good enough. Not to mention the fact there weren’t that many adult Jedi in comparison to the number of children that were joining the school thanks to Jacen’s efforts, so she couldn’t afford to get picky if she wanted a Master who wasn’t her own father. (She’d never have any fun if that happened.)

Besides, Jacen shared her love of flying, so they understood each other quite well. And Mira and Skye were like sisters, so living on the Ghost with her would never be a hardship. Chopper (who’d attached himself to Jacen like superglue after Hera’s death), on the other hand…

Mira’s life from fourteen to eighteen years old was filled with adventure and new experiences that she’d forever be grateful for, loving the stark contrast to her mostly sheltered life on Lothal and Krownest. During the first two years of that time, she scanned the faces and Force signatures of every young male she met, hoping against hope to finally stumble upon her soulmate. But none of them ever sparked to life any true interest in her. Some were cute, some were even drool-worthy, but none made her Force senses tingle with awareness like they should have if they were destined to be her cyar'ika. 

And then what she was looking for went and showed up on Lothal when she was sixteen and actually home to celebrate Caleb and Minxha’s week-long nineteenth birthday and wedding celebrations.

Ben’s imaginary celebrity best friend they loved to tease him about turned out to actually be real, much to everyone’s amazement, when the nearly legendary Poe Dameron flew in at random, not even knowing that he was sort of crashing a family event.

And Mira nearly passed out from the shock of having a new Force bond snap into place as soon as she’d seen the handsome pilot in person. Not because the bond was all that strong to start with, not with him being a non-Force sensitive and completely oblivious to what had happened, but because she forgot to breathe as she gawked at him with open wonder.

The only reason Dameron didn’t catch her with her mouth agape and a stupid expression on her face was because Ben was introducing him to his uncle Luke, Mara Jade, the twins, Padmer and Anika, and his very young soulmate, Rey, at the time.

Her mother, however, did.

Sabine was clearly not impressed that Mira was fawning over a man in his early twenties. Because when it was time for Mira’s turn for an introduction, her mother kept it almost rudely short and the death glares she was giving Dameron for trying to smile at her for three whole seconds was downright embarrassing.

The poor man might have been appropriately intimidated by her mother, but Mira wasn’t. Poe Dameron stayed for a week, hanging out with Ben and following the recently promoted Knight around as he taught classes to the younglings, tinkered on ships, or just hung out with the Skywalkers, with a nine year old Rey hanging on every story coming out of their mouths like they were gods.

During that time, Mira wasn’t much better than Rey, but she was decidedly more subtle about it. Using one of her talents that allowed her to blend in with the shadows and effectively disappear that Ahsoka had taught her, Mira pretty much stalked Poe whenever she could get away with it and not get caught by her elder Jedi. Or her parents. (Sabine had clued Ezra in to the fact that their daughter was all but actually drooling over an older guy, and he hadn’t been too pleased about it despite the fact that age gap relationships abounded all over the New Order.)

Mira decided that she was infatuated with Poe’s smile. Turned on by his dashing and darkly handsome good looks. Melted for his unabashed affection for his rollie droid. Impressed by his generous nature when he surprised Ben’s entire family to a night at the theatre and an expensive dinner afterward. Inspired by how he treated the adults with respect and the children with warm affection. Surprised but appreciative that he seemed to have a basic understanding of the Force but wasn’t stupidly agog over it like many who encounter a Jedi and their powers. And so in awe of his skills as a pilot, considering he wasn’t Force sensitive in the least to give him a little extra edge over his competition. (Much like Hera had been.)

In short, Mira found herself falling in love with Poe as their Force bond strengthened without the poor man even knowing it. Waiting two more years before she could pursue and claim him for herself was going to be torture, but probably a good exercise in patience. (She didn't want her mother to actually murder him, after all, or for him to get thrown in a cell for fraternizing with a minor.)

Fortunately, her Master was very sympathetic to her plight – having done the waiting game himself – and helped her with her meditation and giving her lots of distractions to keep her occupied for the next two years as they continued their quest across the galaxy while secretly watching Poe’s races in person whenever they could and on the holonet when they couldn’t.

Mira was always afraid that Poe would find another girl while she finished growing up, but he never did as far as she could tell. There was never anything in the news of him hooking up with any of his many fans, and when she did catch a glimpse of him in person, there was never anyone with him but BB-8.

And then there was the dreams…

Hoooooo boy, were there dreams. Mira had never really experienced desire until the dreams of her and Poe doing intimate things started. But after that, she swore she was going to just jump him as soon as she could get away with it and hope he didn’t mind too much.

But first, she had to finish her Jedi training.

Jacen was a great Master, and their lessons were occasionally – okay more like frequently - even supplemented by a surprise visit from his father. Kanan’s Force ghost was incredibly wise, and with his added input, he probably did more towards tempering Mira’s instinctive need to fight first and ask questions later than anything else ever had. By the time she was eighteen, Mira was ready to take her trials to become a Knight. Which meant travelling via lothwolf into the Lothal Temple that was now underground and inaccessible any other way.

Long story short, she passed, but she emerged from the Temple with a new purpose thanks to a very real vision of the Knight of Ren who’d taken Hera and the knowledge that he was still alive and up to no good.

There was no way she was going to ignore that vision, or be able to live with herself if she didn’t personally do something about what she’d seen. So with yet another farewell to her concerned but sort of understanding parents, Mira set out in her eighteenth birthday present from her grandmother to go claim her beloved soulmate and set out on a new mission; one that would hopefully save the galaxy yet again from someone even worse than Snoke.

The day after she left, the Jedi school was almost blown sky-high, with only a strong sense of danger setting nearly everyone on edge having them search the school from top to bottom until the explosives were found. 

And that was only the first of many attempts to destroy the New Order, inspiring Mira's quest to new levels of urgency. 


	3. Mira Claims Poe

**A/N: I hope this is close enough to what you asked for. Merry Christmas, Rammy. (And to everyone else who happens to read this.) :D**

* * *

**Mira Claims Poe:**

_D61/26 ABY, Takodana_

Mira strolled into the tavern located near the front door of Maz Kanata’s massive castle and scanned the assembled pilots, mechanics, lowlifes, and scumbags gathered there. The rich and pompous sponsors and spectators of the Tashtor Classic wouldn’t be caught dead in such a place, so they were most likely all enjoying the free room service that came with their very expensive and richly appointed rooms. The HUD in her helmet found a multitude of concealed and not so concealed weapons, vastly varying degrees of body heat, and showed her a veritable rainbow of eye colour as the curious gazes of the assembled turned to look at her.

Being a shapely female, and one of the somewhat rare Mandalorian variety, most kept their attention on her as she sauntered confidently towards the bar and the tiny ancient woman behind it. Mira employed the 360 degree camera in her HUD to keep an eye on all of them. Violence was prohibited in Maz’s castle, but there was a first time for everything. (And it wouldn’t be the first time.) Not to mention that Mira tended to inspire males to do stupid things without even trying.

Before she could make it to the bar, a male Weequay of indeterminate age called out, “Hey! Mando Girl! Long time no see!”

Mira turned and looked at the Weequay. He was wearing a long red coat, goggles, and a hat that just screamed, ‘I’m a pirate!’ There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t remember ever meeting him. Then again, she’d met dozens of Weequays in the last few years - most of them as skeezy as rancid rancor meat - so he might just look like one of them. (They did kind of all look the same, after all.) “Pardon me?” she said coldly.

The Weequay put a hand over his heart as if she’d shot him there. “Oh, the pain! You have forgotten me already? After all the adventures we had together?”

 _He’s nuts!_ “I’m sorry, you must be confusing me with someone else.”

Mira moved on, but his next words had her turning around again and gawking at him in surprise as he approached her and grabbed her hand, raising it to his mouth to kiss – making her very grateful she was wearing gloves. “Oh, I think not. But if that’s how you want to pretend it is, then I can also pretend that you’re not married to one of my oldest and best friends.”

 _What the hell!?_ Mira snatched her hand back and nearly decked him with it as she clenched it into a fist, but she remembered Maz’s ‘no violence’ rule at the last moment. She settled for glaring at him through her helmet for a second before deciding that wasn’t good enough and snatched it off so he could feel her ire properly. “Excuse me?!”

Mira had the pleasure of watching him scan her from head to toe and back again, and not because he was checking her out in sexual way, but because he looked just as shocked as she was a second ago.

“Oh dear,” he finally said, taking his hat off and pressing it against his chest with every sign of sincerity. “Please forgive me. I had no idea so much time had passed that the tiny youngling I met last had grown into…” he gestured at her person helplessly before finishing with, “all that.” Mira just blinked at him, sure her mouth was agape. “And please don’t tell your parents I propositioned you. Or did I proposition your mother?” He blinked and put his hat back on. “Whatever. Either way, it would be best if you didn’t.”

“Who the kriff are you?!” she finally spat out after she remembered how to talk.

His eyes widened and his hand went to his chest again. “You really don’t remember me? Your favourite uncle, Hondo? I’m hurt, Mira. Truly.”

At the name, suddenly she did remember. Not just the countless stories about the pirate that her family liked to tell if they wanted something to laugh about, but a flash of real memory of this man tossing her in the air and then pretending to be a starfighter for her as he flew her around the room, nearly accurate engine noises and all. She gasped and then laughed. “Uncle Hondo! I do remember you! You were my favourite starfighter by far.” He was grinning when she flung her free arm around him and hugged him.

Hondo Ohnaka hugged her back, kissed the top of her head, and then let her go. “It’s good to see you, my dear. But come, come,” he gestured to his table and she sat down across from him. “Tell me what are you doing here, so far from home?”

Mira put her helmet on the table and leaned on it. “Can you keep a secret?”

Hondo smirked, his leathery brown skin stretching around his mouth. “Can I keep… My dear, I know more secrets than the New Republic Security Bureau! And I’ve even kept most of them!” he added with a wink.

She laughed. “Okay, good enough. I’m sure you’ll keep mine anyway, if you don’t want me to tell my dad you hit on Mom, vicariously or not.”

“I don’t know what that means, but I get the point,” he chuckled. “Your secret is safe with me. So what is it?”

“I’m here to claim my cyar’ika,” she whispered conspiratorially. “And my parents don’t know it. They think I’m on a mission to find a missing bad guy. Which I am, technically, but I’m making a little side trip first.”

He beamed and leaned forward, copying her whisper. “What fun! Who is he?”

“Do you know the racer, Poe Dameron?”

Hondo laughed as he leaned back in his chair, taking a big gulp from his mug of ale. It touched the table again before he spoke. “Do I know Dameron? My dear, everyone knows Dameron. He has friends from one side of the galaxy to the other, I swear.” Hondo’s eyes narrowed. “He’s also notoriously standoffish with the ladies. No one’s seen him touch a female in years. There’s even some speculation that he’s in a ‘special’ relationship with his droid, if you know what I mean. Are you sure you want him?”

Contrary to what Hondo probably believed, that was news that made her heart sing. And she wasn’t worried about Poe’s affection for BB-8. “I’m sure.”

Hondo shrugged. “All right. You would know better, I suppose. You a Jedi too, under that Mando suit?”

Mira laughed. “Yeah, I am. Got the lasersword and everything,” she winked.

He grinned in return. “You must be hiding it.”

“I am,” she smirked. “Never hurts to have a trick up my theoretical sleeve.”

“No, that it does not,” he said with an approving nod.

Mira waved away a serving droid who’d finally showed up to take her order and focused on Hondo again. “I was going to ask Maz, but you probably know just as well. Where can I find Poe right now?”

After another glug of ale, he told her.

* * *

In the row of temporary hangars that had been erected for the racers near the castle, Poe was working on his X-Wing, finishing the last touchup details on his paint job for the race. His head bobbed to the throbbing bass of Motley Crue’s song, The Dirt, that BB was playing for him and he sang along as he concentrated on outlining his soaring phoenix symbol in front of the cockpit in a sunny yellow that matched the large number 30 on either side of the midnight blue and dark purple body.

His starfighters had all found themselves subject to new paint jobs after he’d met a certain Mando Jedi girl and he tried to keep them as current as possible to her ever-changing colours… with a little help from an amused and horribly teasing Ben, since Poe had no other way of knowing if his dreams were accurate or not. But it was worth it to Poe because he won more races flying her colours than he ever had before. He was inspired.

Or maybe it was just a complete coincidence, but he didn’t care.

_They never found a way to break us down. That’s why we’re still around._

_Gimme the dirt, just gimme the dirt. Just Gimme what I want till it hurts. Just gimme the dirt, gimme the dirt. Let’s take it to the top and watch it burn._

He didn’t care for a few parts of the song, but the chorus and some of the other lines really resonated with him so it had been part of his pre-race playlist for years.

Finished with the phoenix, Poe moved his ladder to the back of the fighter and climbed back up to repaint the ‘Colossus Fuel Station’ on top of either wing in the same bright yellow, replacing the neon green it had been previously. 

_Gimme the dirt, just gimme the dirt. Just Gimme what I want till it hurts. Just gimme the dirt, gimme the dirt. Let’s take it to the top and watch it burn._

As he finished the last ‘u’ and the last chorus of the song, it suddenly stopped and a feminine voice that haunted him said laughingly, “Interesting song choice. I love that band, but I usually skip that song. Don’t like some of the lyrics.”

Poe froze for half a second to make sure he wasn't dreaming and then he whipped around on the ladder to look behind him, leaving a long streak of yellow across the back of the s-foils.

BB beeped out a laugh, making Poe look back at the fighter before he could fully appreciate the girl standing beside his droid. “Kriffing hell,” he cursed under his breath when he saw what he’d done.

But then he was whipping back around on the ladder and all but falling down it as he stumbled down the steps, leaving the paint sprayer behind to deal with the mess later.

He came to a stop on the last step, just staring at the vision before him. One, because she was kriffing beautiful, and two, because she looked exactly the same as she had in his last dream a few nights ago before his imaginary self had stripped everything off of her body. And he hadn’t asked Ben yet if he’d seen her lately to confirm the colour changes. The fact that his dreams were so accurate was a little frightening, but Ben had said they were probably connected through the Force, so it wasn’t that unusual. Poe hadn’t completely believed him until this very second.

She smiled up at him, expression warm but a little hesitant. “Hello, Poe. Do you remember me?”

Poe’s shocked brain was still processing as he looked at her with starving eyes. Her armour and hair matched his X-Wing; midnight blue with yellow and purple highlights. Her face was every bit as beautiful as he remembered, framed on one side by her long tresses hanging over her shoulder in a thick braid. And her sparkling amber eyes were somehow even more captivating than he remembered. And because his brain was about a minute behind the times, what came out of his mouth was, “I don’t really like some of the lyrics either, but the rest is some of my favourite music of all time.”

As she smiled wider, Poe realized he hadn’t answered her question and flushed in embarrassment. He rubbed the back of his neck in discomfort. “And, uhhhh, yeah, I do remember you. Hi, Mira.”

“Hi,” she said softly back, her eyes trained on him as if she was memorizing his features just as much as he was hers. He belatedly realized that he was making her really crane her neck to look up at him so he took the last step down. Silence stretched between them for a minute or two while he felt as though his entire world had just been made right, until she eventually broke eye contact and bent to rub a hand over BB’s dome in greeting, receiving a happy purr in return, and saying, “Home Sweet Home is my fav Motley Crue song.”

 _It’s mine now too,_ Poe thought through the daze that had overtaken his brain, only worsened by her action which put her prime arse on display beyond the modest jetpack attached to her back. He wanted to touch the perfect curves so much it nearly hurt. He peeled his eyes back up to her face just as she was straightening. “That’s a great song too,” he said belatedly. “Beautiful.” _Like you._

She blushed, eyes ducking shyly for a moment before she met his again. “Thank you. I think you’re beautiful too.”

 _She thinks I’m… Oh stars. Wait. I didn’t…_ Poe’s eyebrows rose and he shook his head. “Ummmm, I didn’t say that out loud.”

“You didn’t?” she whispered.

“No,” he whispered back, swallowing hard. He knew Jedi could read minds, but this seemed like more than that. She acted as though she was surprised by the fact that she had read his. Something Ben had said about his Force Bond with Rey resurfaced about how they shared thoughts without even trying. _Is Ben right? Do Mira and I have a Force Bond too?_

Mustering every ounce of courage he possessed, Poe asked, “Mira, do you… Do you have… dreams? About us? Is that why you’re here?” _Please say that’s why you’re here. Please._

Without taking her eyes off his face, Mira put her helmet on BB’s dome and reached up to cup his jaw, her gloves rasping over his dark stubble that he really wished he'd shaved off this morning. Poe stopped breathing. “Yes, Poe Dameron, I have dreams. Hot, sweaty, naughty dreams.” Her husky tone stopped his heart too. “That’s why I’m here. I’ve come to claim my cyar’ika.”

He raised his hands to rest over hers, holding her much smaller fingers with a butterfly touch. “I don’t know what a cyar’ika is, but I sure hope it’s me.” His heart had refound its rhythm and was now pounding at roughly the speed of light. 

“It is you.”

_I’ve never heard three better words in my life._

Mira tugged on his head gently and Poe groaned out, “Thank kriff,” as he leaned down to kiss her.

* * *

When Mira had first walked in to the prefab hangar bay, she’d had to take a second to admire the gleaming X-Wing in its fresh paint job. Then it had dawned on her that it was painted the same colours she was and that if she thought back over the last few years, it wasn’t the first time Poe’s racers (he had three, the lucky nerf) had been painted the same as her.

Either Poe had been spying on her just as frequently as she’d been spying on him, or he was having dreams too.

She was betting on the later, considering how kriffing realistic they had been. Like they were actually interacting.

The next thing she’d registered was the heavy and almost angry beat of the song he was listening to. Being from one of the many bands that made it on to her playlist, she’d recognized it, but it wasn’t one she particularly liked. But that didn’t matter, because her helmet was picking up his voice above the music, and he seemed to be enjoying what he was singing with loud enthusiasm, so that had made her like it too.

She’d then walked around the X-Wing to get a better view of him and found herself looking up at a prime male arse in beige khakis as he painted the top of the s-foils. The rest of him was covered in a brown leather jacket, but it didn’t disguise his broad shoulders or narrow waist in the slightest. And above that was the short dark brown locks that her fingers already knew were silky soft to the touch and perfect for burying in. She'd pulled off her helmet to get an even better view, breathing in the familiar scent of paint. 

BB-8 had then nudged her leg, getting her attention. She'd smiled at the droid and made a cutting motion, and he'd bobbed his dome, indicating that he'd understood. 

As the music stopped, she couldn’t help commenting on it, and Poe's shock at her intrusion to his sanctuary was one of the best reactions she’d ever seen. Including messing up his meticulous paint job.

And when he'd walked down the ladder, well, let’s just say her heart had forgotten how to work properly as it both raced and stuttered.

Because he was just as drop dead gorgeous as ever, and he’d looked at her as if he’d just caught a glimpse of Force Heaven.

She hadn’t been expecting to be able to hear his thoughts, but it made perfect sense in hindsight; they were already telepathically connected. If he’d had even a quarter share of Force talent, he would have been able to hear her thoughts too.

It was probably best that he couldn’t. Considering they were a jumble of fangirl-like simpering and things like, _Force, this is actually happening._

And then he kissed her and everything in the galaxy seemed to stop and wait with baited breath for a moment before bursting into joyous fireworks as the Force sang and the bond between them thrummed with energy, which then resonated through her body in the most delicious way. She hoped he felt at least some of that as well, because her first kiss would live forever in her memory as one of the sweetest, most amazing experiences of her life.

It had been perfect. Like they’d already done it a thousand times. Possibly because they had, in their dreams.

When he pulled back to search her eyes with his shining chocolate ones, their fingers were intertwined and resting on his chest. She could feel the pounding of his heart through his black t-shirt. “Nothing has ever felt more right in my life,” he said softly. “I’m pretty sure this feeling making my chest ache like I just crashed is called love, and I’ve never felt it like this before.”

Mira melted at his words, bringing tears to her eyes. “That’s what a cyar’ika is, Poe. You’re my beloved soulmate and no one will ever compare to you. I love you too.” His thumbs rubbed over the top of her hands and she cursed her gloves. _Those are coming off as soon as I get my hands back._

 _So fast…_ She heard his thought before he voiced it. “How is this progressing so fast? Ben told me about Force Bonds, but he didn’t mention the love at first sight thing.”

She tugged her hands free and wrapped them around his neck as she stepped closer to him, thrilling as his arms came around her in return. And then she was cursing her jetpack. _Force, I’m so overdressed. At least I can get rid of these._ Her gloves were tugged off while behind his neck and tossed to the trampled grass underfoot. Her fingers immediately found sanctuary in the curls at the nape of his neck and it was just as soft as she expected it to be. “The Force bond is a first sight thing, usually. The love… that isn’t. But we’ve been dreaming together for two years through the Force. Our souls have been in love for a long time.”

He blinked a couple times as he processed that. “Oh. That makes sense.” And then he was giving her that glorious white smile and bending down towards her again. (He was about ten centimetres taller than her.) “Can I kiss you again?” he whispered with his mouth all but touching hers already.

“I’d probably hurt you if you didn’t,” she whispered back, making him laugh and sending his warm breath over her face.

Then their mouths were fused again in a perfect blend of too much pressure and just enough, with each movement brushing his rough cheeks against hers and making it so much better. And oh, glorious day, he’d picked her up by the ass too, inspiring her to wrap her legs around his waist. She could feel every one of his fingers through her bodysuit and his heated kisses were sending her brain into orbit.

At some point, he tried to push her up against the side of the ladder, but it rolled away and they ended up falling to the grass in a surprised whoosh, but that somehow just made it better as his weight settled over her. After looking at each other with wide eyes for a second, the kissing had resumed, more frantic than ever and she didn’t care one little bit that the jetpack was making her spine arch uncomfortably.

There was only one thought left in her brain and it went something like this:

_Thank kriff neither Mom or Grandma is here, because his tongue in my mouth is kriffing amazing and I’d hate for one of them to cut it off._

But Poe was proving to be even smarter and more considerate in real life than he was in her dreams, because the next thing she knew, they were rolling over and she was on top of him.

And oh, she liked this so much better, she realized as she took over control of the kiss and took her turn exploring the textures and flavours of his mouth.

With his hands kneading her arse and the sexiest moans escaping his throat, she was fairly certain he didn’t mind the shift of dominance either.

* * *

Around that time, a curious Weequay pirate cracked open the door to the hangar bay and peeked inside. He watched the entwined figures on the ground for a minute before he closed the door with a satisfied chuckle and then walked away. _Ezra owes me a hundred credits. How he could bet against his Mando daughter not having Dameron pinned to the ground in_ _half an hour or less is beyond me._

_And… I maybe should have told the girl that I can’t keep a secret if there’s possible credits on the line._

_Oh well. Maybe Ezra will be better at it than I am._

* * *

**A/N: A bonus M rated Life Day chapter for this couple will be posted on December 31st in the 'Flame of Hope - Everyone' story. :D**


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